To war or not to war?
by Max-Ernest
Summary: The war is over. A new world is forming. But Tris is conflicted. The annoyance claws at her. Something is wrong, corrupt leaders are on the rise and she has decided to join the others in the rebellion. She will fight yet again with everything at risk, as she did the last time. Only, secrets are yet to unveil.
1. Chapter 1

The quiet of the moment is usurping. I am staring at the picture we once took. Hand in hand, in Dauntless compounds before everything fell away and we were never together again. I wipe a tear and glance around, I am standing in the middle of what was left of the Dauntless grounds after the war. They stripped the factions away, and with it a part of us. I like this new world though, where I am more than a 'Stiff' as Peter still reminds me. I am not Abnegation. I am not Dauntless. I am not Divergent. Everybody is.  
I remember his touch, the way we press our lips against the other's. It's overwhelming but I hold myself together.  
"We really should leave, you don't want to get caught" Peter calls and I turn to face him. He has remained unchanged. Time has battered me, the death of Tobias has pulled me into a scarred world of my own and I know it shows. I am twenty one but I still look small, I still look like the girl without her parents, whose brother betrayed her and whose only family left-Tobias was killed in War.  
I let Peter hug me as he watches me brush away a tear.  
I realize, in so many ways I am different now, at least I have stopped despising Peter. We arent particularly close, but we can survive each other's presence now.  
"I thought you weren't going to come, Tris" Christina voices and I spin around to see her.  
Her satiny chocolate face lifts up at the sight of me, her eyes twinkle and so do mine. A ghost of a tear forms again and I suppress it. We haven't seen each other since the war, it has been years.

"Christina" I call and meet her halfway, our arms link and we hug in a Dauntless manner, a distant yet understood manner.  
They can take away our factions externally, but the factions in us will live forever until one day, when we're dead, nobody will remember the way the factions worked. The craze of the Dauntless. The kind in the Amity. The curiosity of Erudite. The brutality in the Candor truths. And the simplicity of the Abnegations.  
It will all be gone, even what's left of it.  
But this world is better, I tell myself every day, this world is free.

"I thought you'd chicken out" Christina tells me truthfully and Peter snorts.  
"Of course not" I say, grinning clumsily. I open my backpack and bring out a lighter.  
"The place is doused in kerosene and scotch" Christina informs me.  
"Socotch huh?" I say questioningly.  
"Wasn't enough kerosene" she sighs and I let myself smile.  
I don't know what I want. Whether I am glad that this is over, that a new world is under progress or that I secretly despise this new world. But I know there will always be a Dauntless in me, breaking rules and breaking things.  
"Let's burn this house down" Peter announces excitedly and I nod.  
This isnt the end, this is the start.  
We all celebrate the new world but we murmur quietly of the corrupt leaders taking over.  
And the Dauntless forces secretly assemble, not to restore factions. But whenever crazed leader rose, we fought. And we will again. So along with another eightly men and women, children and adults we stare at the quarters and begin to file out.

I recognize faces. I know they're not just Dauntless. I see Erudite and Candor and Abnegation. And believe it or not, even Amity.

A new war has begun. And we will fight. This is the inception.  
I flip my lighter open and the others nod at me in the dark of the night. I flung it and everyone clears out to safety but I watch it burn. I watch the headquarters go up in flames. The tongues of fire lash against the black of the night, complimenting the moon.  
This is war. And I will fight. Not as Abnegation, not as Dauntless. As Divergent again. Only now, everyone will be too.


	2. Chapter 2

"I love you Beatrice Prior" he says and I press my lips against Tobias's but he is disintegrating again. My fingers struggle for more of him, but the whole of him is thinning and slipping away and then he is gone entirely. I scream and bawl and claw and then I wake up.

I am huddled next to Christina, she still sleeps and snores ever so quietly.  
I wipe the sweat away and steady my breaths. The nightmares never cease. They are here every night. I have dreamt of how he promised to come back and didn't, of how the war sucked him in and spat him out, as a corpse. But I don't despise my dreams, because sometimes when I dream of him, he is near me and we are alone, cuddled in the quiet and we share a secret. We share our divergence.  
But there are dreams wherein the war flares at the back of my eyes, all vivid with colors and I wake up searching for a gun to protect myself with.  
The world is in chaos now. Behind the gates, there was more war and we were the troops marched to our deaths. We won, but what war was ever won without sacrifice?  
I can't sleep anymore. We have collected in an abandoned unnamed building large enough to conceal us. We use the bunks we stole from Dauntless before burning it down and the supplies we collected from there. The fire was a signal, an indication of the rebellion. The Insurgence, as we call ourselves.  
We intend to overthrow the government at present that consists of autocratic rule. A man- without a face rules. He used to be an Erudite, we know this. But nobody knows who he is, very few even know the man is the one behind the fake government they have placed. One that they claim all factions merge in and make decisions together.  
Tobias taught me never to believe in this bull.  
When the insurgence found me, I was broken and shattered and they put me back. Christina, Lynn, Uriah, Peter. The four of them were here. A few others too. And I didn't hesitate. Because I knew I couldn't handle Tobias's death with episodes of lament that never ended.  
The only way I could live on, was alongside unceasing bangs of the bullets.  
I don't lie to myself about having moved on. I haven't. I never will. I refuse to.  
A part of me still feels his presence and I will hold on to that.

I walk down and find a silhouette of a man holding himself together, with a stifled sob that came once and then buried itself in the person's throat as I closed in.  
"It is certainly good to see you" he says and even in the dead of the night, I know the voice and the face and the familiarity overwhelms me.  
"Uriah" I exclaim and he lets me hug him.  
I pull back and sit next to him, we are facing a window cracked open, and I know we are both thirsty for light that won't shine on us anytime soon, so we stare into the dark, silently.  
"I miss her, you know" he says and I let myself look at him, promising not to breakdown. His face brings back to many memories. Especially the capture-the-flag and the Ferris wheel.  
I push the thought away, not now, I scold myself.  
"Marlene?" I ask, and I have waited too long to ask, he must think I don't care.  
But he continues anyway. "Yeah. Don't you wish we could just go back sometimes? To the factions?"  
I look over my shoulders to make sure nobody is listening out of habit. This is the insurgence and I should feel secure but if the government heard him reminiscing of the factions, we could be punishable by death.

"No" I declare. Because this is the answer I must give. But I don't know if it's true.  
I imagine for a fleeting movement moving into Tobias's apartment and living with him. Of sharing Dauntless cakes for an entire lifetime.  
Uriah laughs, bringing me back to reality, a cutting, edgy laugh.  
"Why are you here, Tris?"  
"To fight. With the rest of you. With the Insurgence" I declare, hoping it is the truth because I too don't know anymore.  
"You can't fool me. Remember I am Divergent too. I am psychic and I have a magical brain too" he says and laughs. But I know he is demanding the truth, beneath the cackle.  
"To fight" I say again, reassuring the both of us.  
"It has been four years from the first war. He isn't coming back" he says and a sudden urge rises up in me, an urge to pin Uriah to the wall and assault him with an uppercut punch to the nose.  
"Maybe" is all I can say now.


	3. Chapter 3

"Do you hear that?" I ask Uriah but he shakes his head. His face grows cautious now, and I can see the suspicion creep into him.  
The sounds are muffled and hard to make out. It's like paper, I decide, crumpling paper.  
Realization dawns and Uriah looks to me for confirmation, my face reflecting the expression he now wears. Absolute dread.  
"Quick, let's wake everyone up" his voice raises but the trained Dauntless in the both of us take over "We have to evacuate now!" he says and I nod in agreement.  
"We race back to where I bunked with Christina. On another day, I would point out her drooling and make fun of it, but now I just scream for everyone to wake up. My voice is shrill and loud, so is Uriah's. Everyone stirs and moans. I hear a few curses and groans.  
We have spread out over three floors, eighty of us Insurgents.  
"What, what happened?" Christina smoothes her hair and addresses me, irately, and I point out the window.  
A wall of furious flames engulfs the sides.  
"This is some sort of sick symbolic payback" Lynn says and wakes Peter. As if we didn't already know, I want to tell her but I don't.  
"Evacuate now!" I scream "I'll get the others"  
"But the supplies" Christina protests. I shake my head and our eyes lock, there is no time, my eyes tell her.  
I run to the end and down the stairs I've reached another row of bunks and bunks. Most of them are already awake and waking the others, good.  
I head to the lowest floor. Lesser people are waking, most are stirring in sleep.  
"Wake up" I yell, a few bother to face me. "Wake up" I scream again, and another.  
"The whole place is on fire" I've got their attention now.

"Evacuate now" a woman screams and everybody complies, she is a leader, clearly. I can't make out her face in the dark of the night and the dread of the flames. I race back up, but there is no time. On the second floor, a man shoves a gun into my hand and I take it. He must be Dauntless, he won't leave all the weapons behind.

We all race to the entrance and spread to the back gate, I spot Lynn's face which is calmer, and I know she wouldn't lie. We have all at least made it to the gates.  
Although, the flames are brighter now, the air is thinner and suffocating, I can't breathe but I don't let my body know. I keep moving, herding everyone and shoving them out the door. Fifteen of us are left now, the rest have escaped to safety.  
"Move" I scream and let more people go. Ten of us now.  
Most of them must be Abnegation to have stayed behind, helping others escape.  
A man begins to rush me out and I don't let him, I ask him to leave first. I have to make sure everyone leaves. The flames have breached our walls and burned our supplies. Charred pillows rain over me. The burns of the flames sting my lungs and my vision is blurring.  
But as I hear the gunshot, my eyes clear. I forget the suffocation out of adrenaline.  
Another shot.  
It was from the third floor.  
I race upstairs and a young girl begins to protest but I usher her out to safety first, ignoring her warnings. The staircase is melting and falling, the glass is shattered and the wood is burned and gone. The world, to me, is on fire.

I dodge a dropping piece of wood and I can't tell if it's a door or not and I don't bother.  
The sight of the dead body doesn't repulse me, it draws me. I run to see who it is. It's a man, burly and sprawled across the ground, his leg is burning wrathfully. But that isn't the cause of his death, a clean bullet to the head is.  
I whirl to search for other bullet victims and there are three, dead and on the ground.  
The air is overpowering, and the fire murderous. And then they emerge.  
Ten soldiers, fully armed, the cause of this attack. Dogs of the rising government. They wear white and I can't help but think that they deliberately wear the color to oppose the Dauntless black.  
I want to fight, to protect myself but I don't know if I can for long. There are too many and this place is going to be burned to the ground in a matter of minutes.  
A young woman spots me, she tries to shoot but the adrenaline keeps me going. I grip tighter on the gun that I hold and dodge and close in on her. I wrench the gun of her hands, duck an arm punch and land a kick to her stomach. She goes down.  
I spin to find myself flanked. It's over.  
"Drop your weapons" someone screams and I glare at the crowd but throw away both the guns, the woman I beat up, hers and mine.  
Then a man steps forward and even in the dark of the nighttime and bright of the fire as my eyes burn and cry, I recognize him.  
He steps forward and my heart stops momentarily, my eyes widen and my mouth is dry.  
Tears well up but he raises the butt of his gun and slaps me with it, I spit blood and the force throws me back and I'm put out of my misery as I lose consciousness.  
But before I embrace the absolute black, my heart aches and I call out to the man who hit me.  
"Tobias" I say and then I say nothing at all.


	4. Chapter 4

Someone calls out and I jerk awake at my name. Sitting up was a bad idea, my eyes sting and vision is blurred. My head is exploding only further with every passing minute.  
I stabilize my breaths to bring down my headache. I pinch the bridge of my nose and exhale. There, better now.  
The world around me is spinning and I don't know why. In the stirring of everything around me, I can't figure out much. I sit in a cell, of sorts, padded and steeled with just one door that has been locked, undoubtedly from the outside. I am not going anywhere anytime soon, it tells me. I let myself lie down again, I need it, and embrace the black again and drift away.

"Get up" a woman screams and I blink away the spots in my eyes as I prop myself up. My jaw hurts, and the memory comes rushing back. I saw him, I did, I know I did.  
The woman eyes me wearily, but threateningly, as though she does this every day. Maybe she does. If she weren't planning on beating me up, I would think that she is beautiful. Her brunette tinted hair is swept back and her tan skin seems flawless.  
A suspicion lingers at the back of my mind, that maybe, just maybe, I hadn't seen him, maybe it was the fire causing hallucinations.  
I shake my head, no. He is alive. I saw him.  
"Where am I?" I ask, my throat tightens.  
"The capital of course, you're a prisoner, love" she tells me, her tone brimming with hatred. She strikes me as Dauntless because of her recklessness. She wears a gun, underestimating me. I want to make a run for it, but I wait. I wait for the right time.

"Tob-" I begin to tell her but the name wont spill, my lips wont part. His name was his and mine to take, a part of him that he gave me.  
"Four" I finally say "He is here, isn't he?"

"Why thank you, but I'll ask the questions" she says and edges closer, dangling a knife trying to intimidate me. But I notice a flash of emotion flicker on her face, and I know that it is recognition. She knows him. My eyes sting with relief, maybe he is alive. I want to cry, or weep, or punch somebody, but the woman brings the knife closer to me.  
"So, you're a part of the Insurgence, huh?" her voice is a whisper, one that frightens.  
I say nothing and glare at her. Tobias. Tobias. Tobias. It's a chant in my head. He's alive.  
She edges even closer and touches the cool of the metallic blade to my right arm and scrapes with the flick of her wrist. I bleed immediately but my face remains unchanged.  
"Fine. Fingers then" and she grabs my hand, I try to yank back but she doesn't let go. I don't scream, I choke. My heart bangs against my chest and I sweat. Deep breaths, I tell myself.  
She slaps my hand to the floor and brings her knife. She places her knife on my little finger, takes it away for impact and brings it down.

"That's enough" he calls before my little finger splits into two and I exhale the loudest I ever have.  
He steps in and I can see the disappointment on the woman's face as she steps back.

I hold my breath as Tobias walks closer. His dark blue eyes the same, his hair black and cropped, he wears a black t-shirt perfect against his chiseled self and sighs at the sight of me.

"I want some time alone with the prisoner" he says and my heart races. He doesn't know me.  
I begin to reach for him and he shoves me to wall and pins me. My body is on fire, I can't breathe and I can't take his strength against mine.  
"And shut off the camera" he announces and looks at me wildly, as if he were about to set me on fire. He looks at me with hatred and rage that breaks me and burns me, and I can't breathe. I can't exist with him looking at me like that.  
The last of the guards leave and I'm truly frightened, not of what he will do to me now, but because of what has happened to him. What _happened? _I want to ask but I know better. Maybe he's under the serum. Maybe, but I would be able to tell if he were. His eyes aren't conflicted for what he feels for me, he just feels hate.  
The door clicks shut and the camera is off.  
He doesn't drop me, I am still pinned and I still can't breathe and I am about to be killed by the man I would die for.

He edges closer and then he kisses me.  
My knees crumple and he takes me in his arms, I am wrapped and hidden and cocooned.  
It was all a show, I think squealing like a 5-year-old and I think nothing else.  
I run my fingers through his hair and I am myself again. The tears flow without warning but we don't stop. We stay like that, locked and hidden and lost in a chasm, and I swear I hear the roar of the water as I did the first time we ever kissed.

"Tobias, what happened?" I ask, when we finally pull away but my voice is weak and shaky. He winces at my weakness and traces my lips with his fingers.  
"They told me you were dead. The government. They had me join them"  
I want to console him, to reach out and touch him, but I don't. He needs to say what he must.  
"But then I saw them for what they were. Cold-blooded murderers. Jeanine seems like such a nice person now" he laughs bitterly "and then the Insurgence found me. I work for them now. The government doesn't know it yet" it is all a whisper now. We are both aware how horribly dangerous it is to talk about this now so he doesn't say anything else.  
So we stay like that, until he has to leave, but before he does, he kisses me one last time and whispers so painfully, I wince too.  
"It is a lot bigger than we thought. And it has just begun" he says and I nod slowly, as the dread settles on me. But the joy doesn't leave me. I can't help but think that he is alive and I am too, but I doubt we'll both be any longer.


	5. Chapter 5

Tobias visits me whenever he can but he cannot always dismiss the guards and I have to live with that. Sometimes he just looks at me the way I want to be looked at, his gaze lingering on every feature that I own and making it important and beautifying me with his eyes, and leaves. We can't share intimate moments.  
It has been two days and although Tobias makes sure they don't torture me, I am growing restless and weary. The feed me a meal or two but they're definitely not Dauntless cakes.  
So, I wait. Because that is all I can do.

"It is your lucky day" the woman who tried to clip my finger walks in and smiles. Needless to say, I don't like people who try to snap my fingers. She grabs me by the t-shirt I wear and begins to usher me outside and I don't protest. Her grip tightens and my strength is lost. Two other soldiers grab me by the shoulders and she walks ahead.  
I eye her gun, planning my escape.  
I was unconscious when I came here so I haven't scaled the place, and I don't know the exits. I wouldn't count on my luck. I could still make a run for it and find Tobias but these guards wouldn't let me go far.  
She makes a sharp turn and the guards pull me along.  
The passageway they drag me into is white, like my cell. The blinding white claws at my eyes disturbingly. I blink the color away.  
She walks faster now, I can see it in her pacing footsteps that break their regular beat. My guards struggle to drag me along. My heart is pressing against my skin, threatening to fall out. Something is wrong, I can feel it as the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I want to dig her gun out now.  
I almost crash against the woman as we halt abruptly.  
We face a door, striped with black.  
The woman reaches for the door and turns the knob and lets me walk first, I don't seem to have a choice. I enter an office, of sorts with a wooden desk and a chair.  
"It has been a while"  
I catch his green eyes, and my knees give in. His dark hair rustles with the wind in the quiet and I gasp.  
"Caleb" I say and there is so much that I want to say, but I don't. I can't.  
"Beatrice" he smiles but not the smile my brother would wear, this smile is disturbing, and foreign. I want to ask him to hide, to tell him that these people are actually evil, but I can't manage the words. I haven't seen him since the betrayal, and it has been years. A part of me has mustered the courage and forgotten him, if not forgiven him.  
"Caleb" I say again, with my feet glued to the floor. Our entire childhood comes back to me, his disapproval and his calm, his Abnegation. And then the Erudite in him flares like fire, and I can't breathe. His treachery is fresh again and the wounds that I've hidden when he hurt me, bleed again.  
"You should run" I whisper "This place isn't safe"  
I want to say so much more.  
But he laughs, and my strength only weakens.  
He has grown so much, I think distractedly. He is only months older than I am.  
"This place is perfectly safe" he tells me and I want to scream at him to run but I don't.  
My eyes fall onto what he is wearing, his neat clipped blue hued suit isn't torn and tattered like my attire.  
"Let's take a walk sister"  
I nod and follow him as the woman who still stands outside eyes me threateningly as I walk past her.  
A lot has changed, Caleb looks older and different. Something about him isn't innocent anymore, it isn't knowledge and safety that comes to my mind as I fix my gaze upon his. It is almost sinister, whatever it is.

"What is all of this" I finally say, tired of the mystery.  
"No wonder you're not Erudite" he says "you're dense"  
I shake my head at his tone and glare at him.  
"Beatrice" he says finally "This new world is mine. I am the brains behind its forming"  
"You mean?" I say, the dread seemingly murderous.  
"Yes. I am the president. This is my government"


End file.
